Winter Hibernation Meditation

Participants from around the world share their cozy experiences and moments of connection during the holiday season. The session includes a guided meditation centered on rest, relaxation, and replenishment, invoking the imagery of a snug gathering around a warm fire. It's a beautiful blend of sharing, reflecting, and meditating together as we navigate the depths of winter and its rhythms. Tune in for a serene and communal start to the new year.

Original Recording: Tea with a Druid 288: Winter Hibernation Meditation

Episode Transcript

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You're listening to This Magical Life, a podcast dedicated to exploring the depths of spirituality and personal growth.
I'm Philip Carr-Gomm. 3 00:00:22,282.448979592 --> 00:00:22,972.448979592 Hello. 4 00:00:23,172.448979592 --> 00:00:24,12.448979592 Hello, everybody. 5 00:00:24,62.448979592 --> 00:00:25,502.448979592 Very Happy New Year to you. 6 00:00:26,192.448979592 --> 00:00:33,692.448979592 It's lovely to be back after this break and to sense ourselves gathering around the fire again. 7 00:00:33,872.448979592 --> 00:00:35,272.448979592 Great, great to be with you. 8 00:00:36,27.448979592 --> 00:00:38,397.448979592 my name is Philip Carr-Gomm, if you haven't been here before. 9 00:00:39,942.448979592 --> 00:00:45,492.448979592 So let's take a moment to settle as everybody's arriving from all parts of the world. 10 00:00:45,502.448979592 --> 00:00:50,102.448979592 This wonderful moment where it's, it's been snowing today a little bit. 11 00:00:50,112.448979592 --> 00:01:03,382.447979592 So there's people crunching through the snowy landscape to arrive in, in our clearing to gather around by the fire, sit down to greet old friends, to see new faces in the circle. 12 00:01:04,142.447979592 --> 00:01:07,572.448979592 It's a wonderful moment, this moment of greeting and gathering. 13 00:01:09,722.447979592 --> 00:01:34,312.448979592 And as you, as you settle into this place, Maybe, maybe one thing to ask yourself is just allow to spring to mind just a memory of any time really over the last couple of weeks, it could have been something that happened to you today, or over the last two weeks, something that just springs to mind. 14 00:01:36,77.448979592 --> 00:02:07,997.44897959 That brought you a sense of warmth or joy or connection and then if you feel like sharing it do just just type it in and um, I'll tell you something that sprang into my mind when I thought of that was Stephanie and I were clearing out the side of the house and um, We came across a little hedgehog who was hibernating. 15 00:02:08,7.44897959 --> 00:02:12,477.44897959 He was all curled up and, uh, he just had one eye like that. 16 00:02:13,27.44897959 --> 00:02:21,17.44897959 Ah, so we put him in a box and put lots of leaves around him and, um, carried him and put him in a sort of safe place. 17 00:02:21,452.44897959 --> 00:02:24,502.44897959 He'd gone the next day, so I do hope he's okay. 18 00:02:24,872.44897959 --> 00:02:26,532.44897959 Uh, it's so cold at the moment. 19 00:02:27,602.44897959 --> 00:02:30,862.44897959 Um, feeding my special Robin on Christmas day. 20 00:02:31,592.44897959 --> 00:02:37,612.44897959 Um, a moment of deep connection with my mother as she begins a difficult breakup. 21 00:02:38,732.44897959 --> 00:02:40,902.44797959 Those moments of deep connection with somebody. 22 00:02:41,747.44897959 --> 00:02:46,377.44897959 Uh, really important, aren't they? A wonderful surprise birthday party for me on the fifth. 23 00:02:46,377.44897959 --> 00:02:47,327.44897959 So that's great. 24 00:02:47,757.44897959 --> 00:02:48,47.44897959 Yes. 25 00:02:48,397.44897959 --> 00:03:00,727.44997959 Well, this, this time, it's funny, isn't it? I was looking at the calendar and I was thinking, you know, as we move towards the end of the week, we're halfway between the winter solstice. 26 00:03:00,792.54997959 --> 00:03:10,142.44997959 And Imolc, the next festival time, that's, that's one of the beauties of the eightfold wheel of the year is that they come around regularly and they keep coming around. 27 00:03:10,772.44997959 --> 00:03:21,662.44997959 And instead of that evoking a feeling of, oh my God, time marches on, doesn't it? We're all halfway towards Beltane or Imolc almost. 28 00:03:22,232.44997959 --> 00:03:32,982.44997959 Instead of feeling like it's time marching on because it's set in the circle, because it's a wheel, because it's cyclical and seasonal, there's a, there's a wonderful feeling of, of rhythm. 29 00:03:34,182.44997959 --> 00:03:46,702.44997959 Pattern in that, and it always seems to me that although the winter solstice is a time is effectively the beginning of the new year because that's the astronomical new year as the days get longer. 30 00:03:47,572.44997959 --> 00:03:52,242.44997959 The reality is it's still pitch black out here at seven in the morning, pitch darker. 31 00:03:52,302.44897959 --> 00:03:53,802.44997959 I don't know, 430 or something. 32 00:03:54,312.44897959 --> 00:03:57,612.44997959 Uh, it feels just as cold and as wintry as ever. 33 00:03:58,342.44997959 --> 00:03:59,762.44997959 And, um. 34 00:04:00,587.44997959 --> 00:04:06,657.44997959 It's as if we're woken up for the new year celebrations, but then we can, we go back to sleep again. 35 00:04:06,657.44997959 --> 00:04:24,617.44997959 And then the snooze button comes, the snooze alarm comes on at Imog another time and waking up and the snow drops come out, flowers push up and, and we get another little wake up call and, and then another wake up call, uh, again in, in, in March, the equinox. 36 00:04:25,807.44997959 --> 00:04:38,187.44897959 And so now feels very much a time for hunkering down as many of the stories that we, that I, that I read out about snuggling with warm things like kittens and grandchildren and so on. 37 00:04:38,537.44897959 --> 00:04:43,717.44997959 Um, that, that it's a time for snuggling down and for getting warm and for snoozing. 38 00:04:44,352.44997959 --> 00:04:58,522.44997959 Some interesting results, I think it was in coming out of Finland that sort of confirmed what, I mean, I guess we, we, we, we probably knew already, but they hadn't done the research that, um, people sleep longer in the winter. 39 00:04:59,172.44997959 --> 00:05:01,972.44897959 And you may have noticed this yourself. 40 00:05:02,462.44897959 --> 00:05:05,172.44997959 Um, and, um. 41 00:05:06,357.44997959 --> 00:05:12,287.44997959 So here Autry Steve is saying, I really wish I could hibernate through all this horrible cold and darkness. 42 00:05:12,367.44997959 --> 00:05:14,487.44997959 So there's this strong tendency to hibernate. 43 00:05:15,287.44997959 --> 00:05:21,457.44997959 And so let's take that perhaps as our, our theme for our meditation. 44 00:05:22,417.44897959 --> 00:05:31,227.44997959 And even the word meditation can somehow evoke a sense of having to strain or make an effort. 45 00:05:31,337.44997959 --> 00:05:33,217.44997959 Oh gosh, we've got to do another meditation. 46 00:05:34,277.44997959 --> 00:05:38,567.44997959 So here's an invitation to, to not treat this like a meditation. 47 00:05:38,567.44997959 --> 00:05:54,567.44997959 This is just, What is it? It's, it's an invitation to just change consciousness, change gear, and to allow your awareness if you, if you'd like to, to, to move gently into another position. 48 00:05:55,717.44997959 --> 00:06:01,507.44997959 And to do that, you might like to lower your gaze or close your eyes, or you can carry on looking whichever you like. 49 00:06:01,957.44997959 --> 00:06:06,147.44997959 The advantage of closing the eyes is that all this. 50 00:06:06,627.44997959 --> 00:06:36,587.44997959 Input input into your brain stops all this visual information coming in stops and you can allow a sense of peace to develop as your nervous system is automatically less stimulated and you become aware of being seated in front of your screen, the walls around you, the floor beneath you and the ceiling above you. 51 00:06:37,697.44997959 --> 00:06:43,597.44997959 But as you locate yourself physically and in your consciousness. 52 00:06:44,812.44997959 --> 00:06:53,92.44997959 You as this being, this point of awareness in this particular place on earth. 53 00:06:54,562.44997959 --> 00:07:10,932.44997959 You can perhaps allow your sense of the walls, floor, and ceiling to gently fade as you become increasingly aware of approaching this fire in a forest clearing. 54 00:07:12,327.44997959 --> 00:07:54,367.44997959 In this place that we call the Sacred Grove of the Druids, a place where we can be close to nature, close to each other, close to the earth, close to the trees, looking up at the stars, and we might see flakes of snow gently tumbling down, but still in this circle, we're warm and we're dry, we're snugly clothed, the fire is warm. 55 00:07:56,157.44997959 --> 00:08:22,817.44997959 And we're sitting together in the circle, and you just begin to open to the sense of being on the earth and of enjoying that feeling of being on the earth, sensing the life in the earth, welcoming you, and that you are a part of this life on the earth. 56 00:08:22,827.44997959 --> 00:08:33,757.44997959 There are badgers and foxes and all sorts of creatures nearby in the forest, curled up on the forest floor. 57 00:08:35,572.44997959 --> 00:09:01,452.44897959 And here you are too, one of many creatures, and you open to the healing power of the earth, just gently breathing in and breathing out, not having to make any kind of effort at all, just being here and sensing how the trees are here with us. 58 00:09:03,402.44897959 --> 00:09:24,967.44997959 You tune into the trees now and feel the trees rooted deeply in the earth, just quietly present and You might remember another piece of research that's been done that says that trees seem to go to sleep too in their own sort of way. 59 00:09:25,997.44997959 --> 00:09:31,37.44997959 They go through cycles of, which suggests that they are sleeping. 60 00:09:32,87.44997959 --> 00:09:36,307.44997959 So the trees are just gently, quietly resting here too. 61 00:09:36,752.44997959 --> 00:09:46,672.44997959 In the circle, in the darkness, and you sense their protection and their power, their calm stability. 62 00:09:55,142.44997959 --> 00:09:58,282.44997959 And you look ahead to the fire burning in the center. 63 00:10:00,262.44997959 --> 00:10:01,272.44897959 You feel its warmth. 64 00:10:03,802.44997959 --> 00:10:15,542.44997959 You smell the wood smoke and you follow the smoke and the flames drifting up and you look up and you see the stars twinkling in the sky above. 65 00:10:19,762.44997959 --> 00:10:29,72.44897959 And as you breathe in, you breathe in the energy of the sky and of the starlight and you breathe this energy into your being. 66 00:10:36,87.44997959 --> 00:10:43,967.44997959 And the energy of the sky meets the energy of the earth within the center of yourself. 67 00:10:51,917.44997959 --> 00:10:57,47.44897959 And you might feel drawn to feeling even closer to the earth now. 68 00:10:59,167.44897959 --> 00:11:14,237.44997959 There are these dry leaves around you and perhaps it makes sense just to curl up on the dry leaves and just feel the warmth and just tune in to the warmth of the fire. 69 00:11:16,227.44997959 --> 00:11:37,497.44997959 Coming into your body, warming your heart and soul, and you feel how good it is to allow gravity to do its work, to feel gravity. 70 00:11:38,837.44997959 --> 00:11:47,937.44997959 It's a lovely feeling to just feel one's weight on the ground, just to let go completely, relaxing every muscle. 71 00:11:49,2.44997959 --> 00:11:54,102.44997959 Just letting go completely and knowing that one is hell. 72 00:11:57,372.44997959 --> 00:12:03,152.44997959 It's as if two great hands have gently lifted us down. 73 00:12:03,922.44997959 --> 00:12:07,822.34997959 Imagine two hands just gently lifting you down onto this bed. 74 00:12:08,122.44997959 --> 00:12:46,482.44897959 Bed of leaves, such love and such care, just gently lifting you down and then you resting on these leaves and as you breathe in and breathe out, you realize that there's nothing you need to do, nothing you need to think or feel, especially no effort to make. 75 00:12:48,922.44997959 --> 00:12:50,902.34997959 Ah, how restful that is. 76 00:12:54,412.44997959 --> 00:13:26,582.44997959 And you know deep down that as you rest, you're restored and replenished, that this process of letting go actually doesn't mean losing anything, it means actually allowing the energy and the vitality of life to flow into your being, to flow into your body and your heart and your mind. 77 00:13:59,542.44997959 --> 00:14:02,502.44997959 And in realizing that there's nothing you need to do. 78 00:14:04,882.44997959 --> 00:14:30,112.44997959 You know deep down that there's, nowhere you have to go, nowhere you have to be, because here is just fine, here you can just let go, be restored and replenished, just allowing every cell of your body. 79 00:14:34,697.44997959 --> 00:14:47,347.44997959 To be filled with energy and with the subtle life force that invigorates you even as you rest. 80 00:15:12,787.44997959 --> 00:15:40,472.44997959 And you realize too that in moments like this when you're completely conscious and yet completely resting and open, it's as if you can Be recharged and revitalized even more than if you're asleep. 81 00:15:42,532.44997959 --> 00:16:07,452.44997959 There's some process whereby your consciousness can really savor and cooperate with this process of energizing and healing and resting, so that you can float in this delicious place between sleeping and waking. 82 00:16:09,602.44997959 --> 00:16:11,662.44997959 Bring such Helvety. 83 00:16:14,52.44997959 --> 00:17:28,582.4499796 To your body, to your heart, and to your mind, just breathing in and breathing out, feeling the warmth of the fire, feeling all the vitality of the forest, the trees, and of the stars feeding you, supporting you, and then knowing that you can return to this state of rest at any time. 84 00:17:31,592.4499796 --> 00:17:41,202.4489796 Now you just gently start to become more aware of the warmth of the fire, and you just sit up. 85 00:17:42,482.4499796 --> 00:17:59,562.4499796 In the circle, and as you do this, you see all your friends and companions just gently sitting up to, and so you stretch your hands to either side. 86 00:17:59,572.4499796 --> 00:18:09,692.4489796 It's as if we've all been in a sort of giant sleepover where we've all been restored and recharged and we stretch our hands out. 87 00:18:09,722.4489796 --> 00:18:15,202.4499796 So you take the hand to your left and right and feel the energy of the group now. 88 00:18:19,537.4499796 --> 00:18:29,477.4499796 Grounded, strong, peaceful, and calm. 89 00:18:35,907.4499796 --> 00:18:37,597.4499796 May our lives be blessed. 90 00:18:39,547.4499796 --> 00:18:41,587.4499796 May all life be blessed. 91 00:18:43,387.4499796 --> 00:18:46,867.4499796 May peace prevail on earth. 92 00:18:49,787.4489796 --> 00:19:04,782.3499796 We squeeze the hand to either side of us, gently move our palms down to the earth, so they're touching the earth, and we feel our love flowing into the earth, and we ask peace to prevail. 93 00:19:05,392.4499796 --> 00:19:06,912.4499796 May prevail on earth. 94 00:19:10,172.4499796 --> 00:19:12,162.4499796 May all beings be blessed. 95 00:19:12,472.4499796 --> 00:19:13,922.4499796 May all life be blessed. 96 00:19:17,102.4499796 --> 00:19:20,232.4499796 And now let your hands drift up to your heart. 97 00:19:21,482.4499796 --> 00:19:23,232.4499796 Hold your hands over your heart. 98 00:19:26,152.4499796 --> 00:19:28,642.4499796 You might like to do that physically as well. 99 00:19:28,642.4499796 --> 00:19:33,667.3499796 And as you do that, you become more aware of your physical body. 100 00:19:35,757.4499796 --> 00:20:06,807.4499796 And retaining all the positive feelings you've been experiencing, retaining those feelings within your awareness and within your body, gradually allow you allow your awareness of the sacred grove to begin to fade as you become aware of being in front of your screen, fully present here and now. 101 00:20:12,2.4499796 --> 00:20:19,812.4499796 You flex your toes, you flex your fingers, and when you feel ready. 102 00:20:21,152.4499796 --> 00:20:22,212.4499796 You open your eyes. 103 00:20:40,102.4499796 --> 00:20:40,742.4499796 Hmm. 104 00:20:42,262.4499796 --> 00:20:43,82.4499796 Well, thank you. 105 00:20:43,832.4499796 --> 00:20:44,702.4499796 Thank you for that. 106 00:20:44,762.4499796 --> 00:20:48,192.4499796 That was good to be with everyone. 107 00:20:49,42.4499796 --> 00:20:49,592.4499796 Okay. 108 00:20:49,822.4499796 --> 00:20:50,252.4499796 Bye. 109 00:20:54,355.5219787 --> 00:20:56,925.5219787 Thanks for tuning in to This Magical Life. 110 00:20:57,355.5219787 --> 00:21:01,695.5219787 Be sure to subscribe, share, and join me next time for more inspiration.